Continued data migration 12/12/2014

Merged

We are sorry to announce that due to yesterday's outage in the old data center, and 3rd party routing outages in the last week, the data migration window has been extended by 1 week. We are working to get all accounts moved as quickly as possible. As data completes the transfer, more resources can be allocated to fully restoring and enhancing performance. The engineers believe optimization will continue through the end of the month. Some accounts may continue to see disruption/slowness throughout the month.

On or before Friday 12/19 a new update will be posted with progress. It is not possible to provide a firm date and time for completion as there are too many external variables that can affect the time frame.

I agree and feel sorry for the homestead employees having to answer that there is NOTHING they can do to help us. The problem is at Endurance, Int., the parent company. Interesting to note on their website, they are offering 13 million shares of stock for sale?

I have done a complete fresh install' of the desktop builder, (I am using Windows 8.1/64bit.)I posted before on the 'Fresh Install 'on what I did. Well I have done this again, and the desktop builder is WORKING, I have opened 50+pages made changes and published, the new changes show up, it was quick as well. I made sure window.net Framework 3.5 including .net 2 & 3 were switched on and launched the new install and all seems to be perfect :-)

Im in the middle of trying to work the ground work for my events not going back to building a website. Really bad timing. Well my business is dependent on the communications from my clients to us because we are wedding DJs and between the weddings we need to finish us this December and the Corporate Christmas Parties I would say that I am at a complete loss of words,

And remember, when it isn't working on next Friday they'll have another nice weekend to spend with their families.

I'm talking about the owners who appear to be from India?

Hey guys, da, which way did he go? OR > Excuse me, I just fell off of a Turnip Truck, could you please tell me where I'm at?

Keep your sitebuilder and hosting and all of your other companies. I assure you that many of your current customers will be migrating elsewhere after this. Not to mention all of Homestead's loyal employees. Thank you for waking me up ENDURANCE.

Hi Pete-I'm not an employee of homestead or anything like that. I'm just one of many siteowners that have really been discombobulated over this situation. I've been really upset over this. Just as Drew how much I've dumped on him over this. My site depends on retail sales, and I was really counting on having a good Christmas sales season. Then homestead surprised us with this with absolutely no advance warning of any kind. My Christmas season is in the crapper now.

I got mad. And I got upset. But I'm not going to stay that way. I will survive one bad season. To answer your question...Homestead will get us thru this. And you can count on Drew for fair and honest help and advice. I suggest restricting your pleas for help, etc. to Drew. Don't talk to anyone else at homestead. I've had 2 phone conversations with 2 different people by calling in, and both of them lied to me about when I could count on being able to login again. You can count on Drew for honest answers and such. Even if he doesn't tell you what you want to hear, you can at least count on what he says being the truth as he knows it. The best answer I've gotten from Drew is that all will be well again by the end of December. Hopefully before then, but no promises.

I feel your pain--I've been frozen out of sitebuilder plus since the evening of Dec. 4th. Hang in there PeteDarrel (League City, Tx.)

Been with Homestead 7 years and have had nothing but problems. Any new customer site I now build on another platform, since the last couple of years. Moving the remaining 8 sites would just be a lot of work.

Pete, We know it is hard and we are sorry, but yes, we are progressing and things will get better. These back end upgrades are necessary to improve speed and security and to provide a base for future enhancements.

Drew, I realize you are an employee, and you are doing the best with what you are given, but really? Homestead if progressing?? It doesn't seem like that from where I sit... I have hung on since Homestead was sold to Intuit, hoping for the best. But now this, at Christmas time for goodness sakes, the busiest shopping season of the year.. I've been with Homestead since 2003, but my patients is now gone.. This is kind of like the straw that broke the camels back... My first goal for the 1st of the year will be to find my new website provider, because I no longer have faith in Homestead... I used to LOVE working on my website, now I dread it... Homesteads "improvements" have been horrible... What a let down.

While backward steps are necessary in any endeavor to move forward, better communication to one's paying customers is needed. We are now past the 12th of December. How much longer until I can edit again via desktop? Like 1000s of other, I've got work to do; not doing it is bad for one's reputation in the business world.

Couldn't have said it any better myself Stuart. I've been dead in the water with my site since the evening of Dec. 4th, and it's now the 16th. I do sympathize with Drew-he's got the patience of the gods, but unfortunately Drew's good intentions just aren't enough to soften the pain of lost Christmas sales revenue. And the best he is given in the way of an update to pass along to us is that it'll be back up when it's back up. I've got a new home to move my site to if I decide to do it, but I sure hate to go thru all that hassle. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you're not out here drowning in this poop by yourself. It's a stinky pile that homestead has thrown us all into! Have a good'un!

Drew, As a non-techie, I chose Homestead because it was something I could pretty much do myself with only an occasional call to tech support. Moving my whole site is beyond my technical know-how and I can't even access all of my photos on the site to move them if I wanted to. And then there is the issue that I have paid up front for this website. Will I get that money back if I move out of Homestead now? I doubt it. Totally frustrating.

Drew - Like Tim said, you are the messenger and have been great dealing with us. Here is the problem I am facing and I am going to need your assistance or advice with. I am currently out of my office for the next few weeks. With the outage yesterday, I have a customer who wants to jump ship now. All I have with me is my laptop and I have not updated that particular customer's site from this computer so the site files are not on the C Drive. I can get into desktop after clicking retry multiple times, but when I try to bring up that site it will not. It will only bring up sites that I have edited from this computer and are on my C Drive. Is there any other way for me to get the site files for the websites that I have not edited from this computer.

It acts as if it is a brand new site and prompts me to pick a layout. I hit cancel on that, go to files and the files are empty. This is true to any site that I have not published on this computer. The site is tyjyoung.net that is the primary one I need the files for.

You'll need to find this folder C:\ProgramData\Homestead\Homestead SiteBuilder\data\user\Sites\_1757517555. Programdata is a hidden folder in Windows. Rename that folder to _1757517555bak, and then try to launch the site from desktop. It should download the published version.

What a mess and daunting task to look forward to (at least 30-40 websites to rebuild)........but I think I'm going to start moving all my accounts..this is BULL!!! If they did it to us this Christmas with no warning....they might do it again next Christmas or sometime in between. Next week could be the same crap as far as further delays. They are just buying themselves time and trying to keep everyone calm by making promises week after week. I have no faith in this company anymore. I'm so sorry I put such faith in Homestead and talked them up so much to my clients. Now many of us will lose much of our business because of it. What a sad situation....I can't even get into Sitebuilder Plus now!! I'm sorry Drew...none of this anger is directed towards you.

I have years worth of work in Homestead via Desktop SiteBuilder, I am NOT going to uninstall SiteBuilder off my computer! It would take weeks on my slow internet connection to reload.WHY? Because it was working fine before they started this upgrade! I been watching these conversations now for weeks, waiting for SiteBuilderDesktop to work again. If my calculations are correct, Homestead has been working on this 2-3 week upgrade for 19 days now and I have had ZERO access to my website to do updates! :-(

Homestead picked the worst time of the year to do this upgrade, the busiest time of the year for selling stuff....going going....soon to be lost & gone! :-(

Someone in Homestead sure goofed this upgrade up!!!

I been with you since the beginning and have NEVER had this problem until now! Still Waiting for access..... :-(Oh by the way, I have 100's of websites so SiteBuilderPlus won't work for me.

P.S. Special Note To Drew N., You have been doing an outstanding job watching, monitoring, and answering these messages from mostly pissed off people, I take my hat off to you sir!

A few minutes ago I was actually able to log into SiteBuilder Plus, (1st time since Nov 28th) so I quickly updated my main website to let my customers know what is happening and how to contact me, the changes saved and it published, and I was able to view it in a webpage! :-) YEA!!!

Then I clicked my link shortcut on my desktop, and it doesn't show the changes I made to the webpage......Well that is weird! So I went back to SiteBuilder Plus and sure enough it was still showing up there! Then I noticed why it wasn't showing up. :-(

My 1st Question:I noticed SiteBuilder Plus added characters to the end of my webpage shortcut link, (?_=1418472705634) which means none of my 4,000 plus customers will have access to my changes, because all their links will be useless! :-(Will this ever go back to the way it was, or are we stuck with it this way?

Here is a thought: Is this happening because I am using SiteBuilder Plus instead of my Desktop SiteBuilder which created them in the first place?

My 3rd question: I also noticed that Homestead has added this line to the bottom of my webpage (Website Designed at HomesteadTM Design a Website and List Your Business) Why is that there, when I pay for my sites? (I saw no way to remove it.)

My last question: Everytime after I published it, it popped open a box asking me if I wanted to post it on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn, I said, No Thanks. Is that pop-up box always going to appear?

I know your a very busy man, so take the weekend off and let me know when you have a time. I won't be doing anymore updating.

After two calls to technical assistance and an hour's wait on hold, I learned that the powers-that-be knew ahead of time that a 3-4 week moratorium for clients to be able to access their sites was going to occur. However, they never directly notified any of their clients ahead of time, which would have at least allowed clients to put something on their websites to notify visitors that the site would not be updated for that 3-4 week period. A client has to specifically request a credit for this down time, rather than automatically being given a credit for the services they were denied during this period. What kind of customer service is this? Any shut-down of this length should necessitate prior direct client notification. If I were giving a customer satisfaction rating to Homestead Technologies, it would be a minus-5 stars at this point.

Hi Sergio8475I am going to help Drew out here, he is the actual spoke person.They are upgrading the entire system, its been down awhile now and will continue to be down until complete. You might be able to access SiteBuilder Plus, have you tried that?Keith

I get same problem: "There has been an error logging in.Please double-check your username and password. Just keep trying after an average of 6 attempts it lets me in. Though when I get into the desktop builder in the bottom right corner it changes from 'online' to offline'. I have been on desktop builder for about 30 mins so far and all is ok and working and publishing. But I can guarantee that the 'offline' in bottom corner will soon appear meaning pages wont publish. I hope this does not happen but i know it is just a matter of time until it does, so going to get as much as possible updated whilst it lasts. ﻿

We are currently migrating accounts to a new, faster and more secure data center. Some customers are unable to access Sitebuilder desktop. In many cases, you will be able to launch Sitebuilder Plus from within your Homestead account, so you can make your edits. We are working as quickly as possible to make the transition to the new center and get your desktops back online. We are very sorry for the inconvenience.

Some very large accounts with 40+ websites, or sites with several hundred pages, may not be able to launch Plus.

We are very sorry for this inconvenience and assure you we are doing everything possible to resolve this.

This is so annoying. Tonight I was able to access sitebuilder after a while and was overjoyed. I made my edits and saved them but it won't publish. It continues to say that I'm offline which means I still can't update my pages. I know things happen but what about updates to let us know, what about credits that are automatic, what about something just to keep us informed without having to search for answers?

Your hosting service and customer service were both so much better when Homestead was free. When I changed to the Mac platform, I was surprised to find out that I had to use Site Builder Minus (I don't see how so much less can be called "plus"). Now I read a post that says "end of the month (year)."

I get billing emails, but NEVER got a heads up or progress email saying "you're out of luck for at least 6 weeks.....maybe a lot more."..... I am so disappointed.

Continued data migration 12/12/2014: We are sorry to announce that due to yesterday's outage in the old data center, and 3rd party routing outages in the last week, the data migration window has been extended by 1 week. We are working to get all accounts moved as quickly as possible. As data completes the transfer, more resources can be allocated to fully restoring and enhancing performance. The engineers believe optimization will continue through the end of the month. Some accounts may continue to see disruption/slowness throughout the month.
On or before Friday 12/19 a new update will be posted with progress. It is not possible to provide a firm date and time for completion as there are too many external variables that can affect the time frame.

I have been told so many conflicting things about this "migration" problem that I honestly don't know who or what to even believe. I've been told (on Monday, Dec. 8th) that I could count on being able to again get back into sitebuilder plus by end of business the next day. THAT DIDN'T COME TRUE! I was told Wednesday morning (Dec. 10th) that I could take it to the bank that access would be restored between Thurs (the 11th) and Monday (the 15th). Then last nite, I read a post by Drew here on the community forum that access most likely wouldn't be restored until at least the end of December. You know, I can understand that any problems that anyone like me is experiencing because of this problem is of absolutely no concern to Homestead personnel. I have already lost out on what should have been my Christmas sales revenue. It's even possible that I will lose all of my customers because they aren't able to get any service from me now when they need it.

I have one question that I would appreciate an honest, truthful answer to...WHEN IS THIS DARN NIGHTMARE GOING TO BE OVER?!?!? I mean, really people. This has ceased to be funny!!!

I'm a tiny but sucessful business, been on page 1 on google, etc, for many years. My beloved business paid my rent for years, but right now I'm going out of business because of this. My Christmas season was destroyed, I'm devastated, and adding insult to injury, homestead raised their price! Was in the process of changing prices, decorating the site for the Holidays, now half my pay buttons are wrong, and I can't publish the changes. Couldn't they have done the great migration in April? So frustrated. Oh well, maybe it's fate telling me to retire. (I'm 71)

As of this morning all of homestead seems to be working fine and the glitches sorted!!!.I was not able like many of you to access the desktop builder for many weeks, but as of this morning all is back to normal, I really hope this is not temporary. I have republished my site all lines breaks are good, it is fast and reliable I have logged out many times and then logged back in with no problems and no freezes!!!!! :-)

You can not believe how happy I am I can finally get all my work done as well as my clients, if your builder is all ok please let me know sot hat we can all determine that the desktop is back and working and we can all now get back to our dedicated work as we are used to with the great desktop builder.

Even though I can logon to my account, sitebuilder will not open my website so I can edit, save and publish. I would be much more tolerant of Homestead's problems if I could at least work on my websites. Slow would be a step in the right direction, but not being able to access my website shuts down my revenue goals for the holidays. My business is screwed. Management need to make announcements. They need to be accountable to their customers. Why do they shun the limelight? Cowards!

It is likely related to this migration. Is this happening when you are adding things to a page, or when publishing? Have you tried using Sitebuilder Plus online for the short term? Have you tried using the file manager to add them to the site and then add them to the page?

I always use sitebuilder plus online. I cannot add things to a page or publish because my websites will not open up. I get time out with the server or get the Webpage not Available message. Now you can see my frustration. I figure it's Saturday morning, maybe less activity on your servers so maybe I can get some work done. I was wrong! This website has 130 pages on it (not huge by anyone's estimations) and it doesn't have any fancy apps that would slow it down. HELP! HELP! HELP!

Which site are you trying to load? I just loaded your largest site(221) pages into Sitebuilder Plus with no timeout. I am also showing 25 pages published over the last 2 days. Can you give me more information as to what is happening today?

Since you began this "migration", I have lost possible customers for both you and I due to outages and slow response when loading live or site builder. Quote from my customer, who was going to be moved to an individual account on Homestead for their business. "You expect me to have my customers wait that long to see my products?" I didn't know how to answer. Also, with this slow response, it is taking me a lot more time to complete a build. $$$ from my pocket. The excuse of third parties, etc. is your problem, not the user community. So I am more than happy to have my rates increased for less than acceptable service. When will the PROBLEMS be resolved?

Casey

P.S. I would have been fired for such a sloppy migration when I was project managing data center operations.

I am publishing now. Make sure to refresh when you look at the published site. It is showing that everything is publishing, but it is taking a while. If you don't see changes reflected after refreshing, then tell me which page and what should be there. I'll look at the editor as see what it shows. It might be a while longer before everything is published.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Help please!.

Help please! I cannot go online from the editor in my computer. I can see and update my sites in the webpage, but not go online from my computer. It says that a software is preventing me from doing so. I would hate to loose my work

Drew...I'm interested in that same question of being able to go back to Desktop. I used PLUS once a long time ago and it took over everything. I don't want to go through that again....just want to make sure that I can go back to Desktop when it comes back on line.

Yes. In most, if not all, cases the engineers say that desktop will just start working again with no additional worked required on your end. It is possible that we may have to have some folks do a clean install to reestablish connection.

Drew-i'm reading threads and posts here this afternoon. It appears as tho some are now getting into sitebuilder plus. You have even suggested to some who use sitebuilder desktop to try using plus. But, I have just tried once again to bring up my sitgebuilder plus. Still the same old crap. When is it going to be my turn sir? Next December?? Your patience and tolerance is to be commended. Not many would even still return every day to moderate after what you have had to endure. You aren't the real culprit here, but people need to be able to vent when things are this pitiful. If what Endurance has put us thru isn't criminal, it should be. Like everyone else here, I just desperately need to get into sitebuilder plus, and all I get is more delays and frustration. What a pitiful comedy of errors this Homestead experience has turned into!

I feel like it has improved slightly for some folks. Some people who were able to edit but not publish, I was able to publish today for them. Unfortunately, the engineers have said there is no way to predict or influence the reconnection, but it will not be next December. I know you are probably more tired of hearing the same thing than I am saying it, but there is no way to give an exact date that you will begin to connect again. Hopefully it will be soon, and hopefully my next new update will bring better news for everyone.

I do understand venting and have allowed it pretty much, unless it became out of hand. We did start receiving some complaints about the semi related comments or arguments getting in the way of good information, so I am cleaning up all the topics I find, by merging them into the latest update. I am hoping this will help keep people informed better and reduce the confusion. Unfortunately, when merging, only the original post of the topic is displayed, so it may appear as though I have deleted a lot of posts, that is just how the program works. In reality, I have only removed a very few posts due to violations. It isn't something I like to do, but it is sometimes necessary.

Drew, you likely will find this hard to believe, but I normally am a pretty calm person. You aren't even the one who made the lame-brained decision to do this migration thing at this worst time of year to do it. The fact the migration was done or even needed to be done isn't what has had me so upset. It's the time of year (Christmas time) that was decided upon. Whoever this Endurance outfit is, they certainly didn't have the well-being of their customers in mind. I am one of those that relies on retail sales revenue. And seasonal Christmas sales revenue in particular is extremely important. And because of terrible decision-making my Christmas season was flushed down the proverbial toilet. And the only part of it that is my fault is by selecting Homestead for my site host. I desperately need to get into sitebuilder plus before I permanently lose absolutely every one of my customers. Any dumping and venting is because of that vital necessity. I don't enjoy being an @#%hole.

I am not privy to all the whys and whens they do things, but Endurance is a leading provider of web services and does nothing else, so I have to believe that it was for a really good reason. I know from the engineers that there is a fault in the old data center, but I do not know how much that factored in.

Drew-what is this moving sites around that you've offered to do to help some customers to get into their sitebuilder plus account? Is that something you could do for me? I don't understand what it is, so i'm only asking. After me being the king-sized jerk that i've been I do understand that i probably have no right to ask for any special favors from you. But I am asking simply because by now i so desperately need to get into my site and can't.

Some customers have created a new account and moved sites to the new account and had some luck. Not everyone has it work or we would be doing this more. Often times in a site move the navigation becomes corrupt as must be rebuilt manually. Other times not all the files get copied. I imagine that is more a factor of the data being moved and some parts time out along the copy. It is something that we can try, but I can't promise results. Your site is also significantly larger than any I have seen tried. If you want to try, then create a new private conversation, because I will need to confirm email address and PIN on both accounts.

Plez bear with my techie ignorance Drew. I'm not really clear on what you're suggesting. I would need to create a new Homestead acct? Would this require a new, different domain name for the new site you would be transferring all my data to? At this point, cost is not my only concern, but is this something that would cost me something? You said my site is significantly larger that others you have tried this with, so i gotta ask is this a waste of time? Even a badly as i need into my site, I hate to waste your time on something that would be doomed to failure. Give me your honest assessment of that. I'll trust your opinion, even if it's not what I would prefer to hear.

No worries. It's a bit of a lengthy process, but if you create a new account on the business package, you will get 30 days free automatically. We try copying your site of to the new account. Then you will need to look through it to see if everything is ok, or anything needs to be fixed manually. If everything looks good, then we can move the domain to the new account. Of course when the connection is restored, then we will have to move everything back and close the new account.

I am willing to try, and it is also possible that while we do all this, your connection could resume, but the act of copying the site can't cause any trouble. I don't honestly know if it will work or not, but as I said, if you are desperate, then we can try. If it works, I can probably have you editing tomorrow, but I don't what you to expect it to work perfectly.

Drew, i'm likely once again showing my ignorance with this, but i've looked at the community home page and i don't see where or how to create a private conversation. What am i missing here? Who, what, where, when how do i do it?

Drew, I am trying to open the new business acct per your suggestion. I have twice clicked the button (2 separate windows-2 separate attempts). I was careful, especially the 2nd time, to use the button for the $20.99 business acct. Nevertheless, the system is wanting to give me the $60.99 platinum package. I understand that this is a free 30 day trial, but is this going to create a problem with what you are going to be trying to do? Also, are you going to be working this evening, or should i now wait until tomorrow or monday to continue this?

Drew, i definitely wouldn't fault you for doing it, i'm only asking the following question so I'll know---not to pass judgement etc. I know you're busier than 10 people should be, but am i not hearing back from you because you have shut down for the evening. Also, i need to know where/how i create this private conversation you mentioned. I can't find where it's at here on this community forum so i need your help.

I have been a customer since it was free for non-profits in 1998 and so far it has been a good ride. I don't have products for sale but do feel for those who have.

Has everyone gave a thought to just sitting back and giving it a rest.

Back in the early Internet Christmas days to increase sales it was always advisable to sell and promote your site on auction sites - I would think that is the norm today and might help a vendor's bottom line - if not it would take away the frustration of wanting to hit your computer with a hammer - lol

As we have read from all the latest tries, it either failed and some report loosing parts of their site (or pages) it has been hard to understand.

With the additional tax on the system, the binary is probably still clearing out the login attempts of 2-weeks ago - lol

Sorry, yes I had left, but I am here today. Go to the homepage of the community and click on New post. It will ask for a title, continue, then Post with this title. Under the conversation type there is a check box for private.

Hi Drew-I'm beginning to think i'm just jinxed. That proverbial dark cloud hovering overhead. I imagine you're really getting hammered today, being Sunday and all. I've tried 6-7 times to login to sitebuilder plus. I've also tried several times to private msg you. Absolutely all i'm getting every time is the "this page cannot be displayed" page. seem s to be coming up with homestead in general. I'm able to get anywhere else on the internet, just can't get to you. I guess i'll never know whether this transferring idea would've worked. Certainly not your fault. I feel guilty continuing to waste your time like this when others need your help and obviously can get through to you. Have a good'un!

Sorry about that. I have had several private conversations today, so I am not sure. If you are able to create a regular one, then I can make it private after. If you want to take the day off, that's ok too. I'm here to try to help, so anything you need is not a waste of time.

Hi Drew, APPRECIATE the time you have in the blog and helping people out .. I was going to ask, if a new account can be established and PUSH sites over but seems there are some issues in doing that ? .. An additional question I have in my large account I have "painfully" been able to make "emergency" edits using SB-Plus, because I have experienced "formatting issues " I have not published entire sites with PLUS only the page b/c of the formatting issues.. When DESKTOP is back online I know Ill have the option to download local or published, since ( for example) i publish ONE of 10 pages on PLUS will downloading PUBLISHED version show all current pages ( even if published @ different times ? )

Drew - I prefer SB desktop, but, of course am mostly unable to logon. Today I cannot logon to the Homestead website either to try to use Plus. I continue to get the error "We're sorry, but the email address or login name you entered has been locked due to multiple failed login attempts. You'll be able to try again in 15 minutes." I waited 30 minutes and tried again. Repeated every half hour for several hours. No luck. Then tried a computer that doesn't have Desktop or any other Homestead data and it too is giving me the error. Is there some way to "unlock" my account so I can try to access Plus?

Yes, thanks. Am logged on. Still S-L-O-W, but knew that. I was able to logon to Desktop this past week for a very few minutes. Made a couple changes and published. Checked the published site and the changes were made. When I pulled that site up in Plus just now, the changes do not appear. It was my understanding that Plus would sync with the published site. Correct? Do I need to do something else in Plus to have it sync with the published site?

jackie....I swore I would never use PLUS.....but out of desperation I decided to try it. However, nothing worked. Took me many many tries and severe lag time to even get in and when I did....I asked PLUS to download the published copy. When it popped up, it was a copy from several months ago and all heading and footers were mis-aligned and print was missing. It was a mess and I just backed out before I messed the site up completely and not be able to fix it. In short....I do believe there is an issue in the sync with the published site. I don't believe anything is working 100%.

Drew - did as you said. The published copy was not a cached version. I also took a look at it on another computer that hasn't been to that site before. So the published version is correct and I don't want to mess with it since it is a relatively new client. The small change I made in desktop was to change the facebook link and add a twitter iink on the bottom of the home page. cpccrx.com If you can get the published copy into the Plus editor, that would be helpful, as long as it doesn't affect the published site. If there's the slightest chance it will change the published site, I'll pass. Confidence in the product is extremely low (as I'm sure you know). Thanks again for your help.

Pat 5311 - thanks for sharing your experience with Plus during the migration. I have read so many heart-breaking stories on this board and others. I never used or liked Plus and when I looked at it again this past week out of desperation, I remembered why. I will heed your warnings.

Drew...I'm willing to try about anything at this point but I'm scared to death that something will go wrong and I will be in worse shape than I am now. Not sure what to do.....just wish I knew for sure how much longer this will be...Thanks...Pat

Drew - I see, with all the other posts, you are swamped today. You can skip looking at my site, there are many others with more pressing issues. Again, thanks for sticking with all of us through this mess. Even though we vent, we do appreciate it.

Drew- I have been trying to edit my website, penrosekennel.homestead.com . One of the techs moved it to a new account, they said it would work, however it still times out and does not log me in. If I could just add a paragraph to the index /front page of that site, I could at least let people know what is going on and possibly save myself from bankruptcy. :(

Unfortunately that works only sometimes for a number of different reasons. I did manage to get the new one online in Sitebuilder, but there are some images that apparently did move for some reason. The site you should try to edit is penrosekennel1.homestead.com. I could try to copy it again, but I am not sure it will do better.

Well, I enabled Sitebuilder desktop on the new account and it connected and began to download the site. You can try that, but again, it doesn't appear the everything copied over, so there might be some editing required or we can try copying again.

Desktop is the old downloaded software you used a while back, as opposed to Sitebuilder Plus that you use now. I'll set it up to copy again. I don't know how long it will take, but it will likely be tomorrow before I can see if it all worked.

"You cannot use this version of SiteBuilder to edit this site. To edit your site with SiteBuilder Plus log into your account, click the my websites tab and then click edit your site. If you have any questions, please contact customer service"

I don't know. It fully downloaded for me. It looks like the copy worked completely. Strangely, I am not able to open it in Plus today as I did yesterday. If I can open it, you should be able to. I am thinking about it.

okay, so now it is downloading in sitebuilder. I was tryinh to log in with my other log in, not the new one the techs created. I assume it will take awhile. Question- What happens when everything it back to normal?

okay, so I did some editing and then I published it. None of the updates show up. Thought- is it because it is basically a different site now due to the different address? penrosekennel1 vs penrosekennel?

Yes. You have to browse to penrosekennel1.homestead.com. If you look through it thoroughly and find it is in good shape, we can rename penrosekennel to penrosekennel2 and then penrosekennel1 to penrosekennel. This will make any links in the world go to the new site. First check the whole site http://penrosekennel1.homestead.com

they all show up in that screen. So all is good with it.They moved these sites-sagespuppies.homestead.comsundaespups.homestead.comisabellespups.homestead.compippinspups.homestead.com penrosekennelgeneralinfo.homstead.com

Was this so you can try to edit those? Are all the sites interlinked? If so we have to rename everything. to make this work. I am not sure what the agent was doing when they did this, do you remember the details of the conversation?

Ive been getting the same issue and message "You cannot use this version of SiteBuilder to edit this site. To edit your site with SiteBuilder Plus log into your account, been this way for a few months. Just thought the two could not be edited at the same time. Do i need to do a complete clean install?

I think the agent was just as frustrated as I. Trying to make something work. Yes, I think so I could try to edit those to add updates and photos. I use the penrosekennel.homestead.com to "point" to all the other sites. i.e. Sundae has puppies, click here to go to their pageIf we could get the main site renamed/moved, whatever you think needs to happen, I can work around the others until this is all settled I think. I cannot begin to relay my appreciation in your help.

I agent I talked with that moved them said I would need to move them back when everything was fixed. These sites are under the "new" account that she set up for me. They will need to be moved back and returned to their prior names, correct?

Ok. So each site has it's current name on your old account. Anyone who has linked or bookmarked those URL's including you, from one site to another(if you do this) need to have their links maintained. So you call penrosekennel the portal. Does that mean that it may have links to the other sites? If it does, then they will have to be renamed as well, unless you didn't change anything on those sites. If you did change, they will have to be renamed as well or the links will still go to the old pages on the old account. Does that make sense?

Also, yes, when done, we will have to move all sites back to your original account so that you don't get charged for 2 accounts.

okay, had some coffee and a minute to collect my thoughts. :) The sites need to stay ﻿where ﻿﻿﻿ they are right now in the new account so I can edit them. I still have NO access to my original account. Also some of the moved sites are not loading at all, looking blank.

Please rename the all the sites, which means taking the 1 off the end. Then I should be able to edit the ones that are critical right now.

I have not changed anything on the penrosekennel.homestead.com page except to add the paragraph on the index page explaining my lack of updates. The other site that were moved, added the 1 to the end. I have not linked anything to those moved sites yet, because I am just now able to add some updates.

I do link from the index page to other pages/sites, but I have not changed any of the links to show the "new" addresses with the 1 added I tried to update one of the moved sites sundaespups.homestead.com and when it loaded it was blank.

Ok, the sundaespups site didn't get moved, that's why it is blank. I have set it up to move and will take care of that and let you know. Are there any sites on the new account you are not able to edit besides sundaespups? If so, tell me which and I'll take a look.

So, you are ready for me to rename the penrosekennel now? I would just assume leave the others the same until you have saved and published them if you don't mind. Once you get one published then I can make the change. That way we can make sure each site and links work as desired before making the change to others. I don't expect any problems in the renaming, but trying to be cautious.

I had the pleasure of being "Santa" at my wife's school today for a wonderful bunch of kids. Be nice if I could post pictures to my website for that school, but the only thing that seems "posted" is "Sitebuilder Plus has stopped responding. Either Kill the Page or Wait." Of course the Wait only leads eventually to a Kill the Page.

There will be a lot of coal in people's stockings this year I can assure you.

I have read i don't know how many threads here in the forum today from site owners who have had at least partial success at getting into their sitebuilder. At the risk of sounding paranoid, i gotta ask: Am i the last holdout on still being locked out? I've had one window open for well over 2 hours at trying to login. It's frozen on the startup page of the login process....just spinning, and spinnin g, and spinning, and spinning ad infinitum (that's after the 0x41 error message came up and i cleared that off). All of you that have had some kind of success at getting in,,,i'll give you 50 cents to trade places with you! lol

Is it just me...or is the site builder EXTREAMELY slow? It crashes every 5 min. and I have to reboot the web page. At this rate it will take me a year to build my webpage. I have been on line for about 1 1/2 hours and have only uploaded 10 pictures...unbelievable.

Me too......I could live with slow! I have had no access since November 20....on Desktop nor PLUS (which I despise)....At least I could get the important stuff done for clients and the rest could wait....

When are we going to be able to use the desktop version again? It has been almost a month and if I have to continue using the online version I will be looking for a different service for the class website.